A few months after the U.S. Central Command expressed concern about the use of weaponized drones to attack the U.S. military in the area, a U.S.-led coalition plane shot down an unmanned drone in Deir al-ez-Zor province in eastern Syria on Saturday. .
“The coalition aircraft successfully fought and defeated the drone through air-to-air combat near the mission support site Green Village,” Reuters The coalition spokesperson, U.S. Army Colonel Wayne Marotto (Wayne Marotto) quoted him.
Although the alliance refused to disclose the type of aircraft used or other details on the grounds of safety issues, a report came from Aviation Weekly It is said that an F-15E Strike Eagle of the United States Air Force used the AIM-9X Sidewinder missile to hit the UAV system.
The report added Brig. General Christopher Sage, commander of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, is flying a missile-launched F-15E.
According to reports, although the Air Force has not disclosed the location of the Wing in the Middle East, some of its personnel are stationed at Mowafaksalti Air Base in Jordan, near the Syrian border in the eastern desert. Military net.
As General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, this is of great significance. Talking about April believes that the threat of small drones is a matter of great concern to the coalition forces.
“These things worry me very much because our air defense systems, our Patriots and our other radars are very good at observing larger objects, whether it is ballistic missiles, larger ground attack cruise missiles or larger Drone,” he added. .
“Smaller drones are a problem, and smaller drones are the future of warfare, and we need to get ahead now,” McKenzie said.
These comments were made after a drone dropped TNT explosives near the U.S. military stationed at Erbil International Airport in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Although no one was injured in the explosion, this is the first known attack of this type against US forces in the area.
In June of this year, President Joe Biden ordered airstrikes on three facilities along the Iraq-Syrian border that were suspected of assisting Iran-backed militias in launching attacks. Drone And rocket attacks on US military bases in Iraq.
A defense official who asked not to be named later told Foreign policy F-15 and F-16 fighter jets used hybrid precision guided munitions to strike. He added that the attacked location was the command and control and logistics center used to drive the unmanned aerial vehicle.
The American F-16 Fighting Falcon deployed at the Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia also conducted operations to test their ability to track and destroy UAVs that invaded with Saudi aircraft.
Photo: U.S. Navy/U.S. Navy Captain Bill Urban
